Leid Stories

The Green Party’s petitions for court-ordered recounts of 2016 presidential votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania so far have yielded mixed results.

With 23 of 72 counties completing their recounts by yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump added 105 more votes in those counties to his 22,000 margin of victory over Hillary Clinton, who lost 41 votes.

In Michigan, where eight counties began recounts of 4.8 million ballots on Monday, a state appeals court ordered an immediate halt to the recounts. Stein has no standing in requesting recounts, the court said, because her poor showing in Michigan does not qualify her as an “aggrieved candidate” under state law. State Attorney General Bill Schuette wants to stop the recounts immediately. The state election board considers the matter today.

Election officials in Pennsylvania announced yesterday adjusted figures showing Trump’s lead over Clinton shrinking from 71,000 to 49,000 of more than 6 million votes cast. But that discrepancy, being contested in a new round of lawsuits by Trump and Republican voters and super PACS, is not enough to trigger an automatic recount, officials said.

Stein has said that her recount push is meant to “protect the integrity” of the vote and the democratic process. But Leid Stories has been raising questions about whether it is as one-dimensional as that.

We continue yesterday’s discussion about the Green Party’s puzzling demand for vote recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Dr. Jill Stein, the party’s 2016 presidential candidate who garnered 1 percent of the national vote and zero electoral votes, filed court actions to force the recounts, even though support for the party in those three states was very low and was expected to be. The battle in all states essentially was between Republican Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton; all other parties barely registered on the election-vote radar. In the targeted recount states, however, the margin of victory between Trump and Clinton was slim.

Intimating that the Green Party has reason to believe that both the votes and the voting process might have been compromised Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania—although no complaints have been filed and Stein admits the party has no evidence of vote tampering—Stein says the recounts are meant to “protect the integrity” of the voting process.

Stein’s recounts are being funded by donors and supporters; the cash-strapped party has raised $7.1 million of the $9.5 million it will cost. But while Stein touts this as proof of brisk support for her just launched “vote-integrity” project, both she and the party are embroiled in a firestorm of criticism.

Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate in the 2016 election who got 1 percent of the popular vote and zero electoral votes, last week stunned the political world and even her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, with the announcement that she would seek a vote recount in three states—Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania—with slim voter margins between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. Stein said the effort was to “protect the integrity of the vote,” hinting that it was possible that Trump’s victory in these states might have been the result of rigging or fraud. Millions were raised to fund the recounts.

Stein targeted Pennsylvania first on her recount list, taking her fight to state court. Over the weekend, she announced she’ll seek redress in federal court instead. Her lawyers, she said, will be making her case in federal courts in Wisconsin and Michigan as well.

Stein’s recount moves have caused a firestorm of reaction. What’s really behind her actions? Leid Stories listeners debate this and other salient questions relating to the Great Recount 2016.

 

It’s our weekly open forum, “Free Your Mind Friday,” on Leid Stories, and you’re invited to share your astute observations and analysis of the issues and events that shaped the week, or on any subject you consider worthy of further discussion or debate.

Call 888-874-4888 and let’s hear what you have to say!

President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet and top-staff picks so far are an interesting lot and a strong indication of where he and his new administration—and, by extension, the rest of us—are headed.

The “Dream Team” he has been assembling since winning the election is a mostly-white-male collection of billionaires, global financiers and corporatists, well-connected political-insider retreads, military/intelligence war hawks, and God-and-country nativists bent on returning America to its “values,” and choice denizens from the political “swamp” Trump has sworn to drain.

Scared yet?

Leid Stories says the signs are already on the wall that we’re in for a long, bruising fight against oligarchy. Are we ready? 

Reversing the victorious “Caravan of Freedom” march he and his revolutionary forces made toward Havana after defeating the U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959, the cremated remains of national hero Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, who died Nov. 25 at the age of 90, are being taken from Havana to Santiago de Cuba for final rites Dec. 4. The two-day trek, about 560 miles, will give Cubans along the length of most of the country the opportunity to pay their respects, officials said.

Castro’s leadership of the Republic of Cuba (as prime minister from 1959 to 1976, and as president from 1976 to 2006) shook up the world—causing political, economic and even military alignments and realignments North and South, East and West, while supporting humanitarian efforts and anti-imperialist and independence movements especially in the developing world.

Drawing on their own personal experience, Leid Stories listeners discuss the impact Castro and Cuba have had on them.

The saga of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation continues, and Leid Stories reports the latest developments.

Several foreign governments that generously had donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the foundation to fund many of its “charitable” programs around the world want their money back and are taking legal action to get it. Their action could be a fatal blow to the foundation.

Documents and reports recently submitted to the IRS by the foundation—after two extensions—still are not complete, and again omit detailed accounting for all money received and how it was spent.

Although President-Elect Donald Trump appears to have flip-flopped on his pre-election demand for a federal criminal investigation of the Clintons and their foundation, Leid Stories has learned that one is ongoing anyway, and key players in the outgoing Obama administration are working feverishly to intercede in the Clintons’ behalf before Trump takes office.

Charles Ortel, the recognized expert on the Clinton Foundation and credited with exposing it as “the largest unprosecuted charity fraud in history,” explains the significance of these and related developments.

The death Nov. 25 of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary former president of Cuba, has further winnowed the already sparse ranks of leaders who were the vanguard of resistance to global imperialism and colonialism. Many of the “new” generation of leaders thought it futile to stand up to world powers or eagerly traded wholesale pillaging of their people and their nations’ resources for private, personal gain.

Castro, in for the long haul, was both inspiration and help to other struggling nations trying to throw off the yoke of foreign domination and oppression, and a reviled thorn in the side of countries (particularly the United States) that were determined to bring Cuba to heel through blockades, sanctions, military threats (including of nuclear war), and attempted invasions and assassinations. Castro and Cuba survived. President Obama’s announcement in 2014 that the U.S. will seek normalization of relations with Cuba after 50 years was a sign that the superpower was no match for Cuba’s determination about its sovereignty.

Castro’s death, therefore, marks a milestone—not only in Cuba’s evolution as a nation. But also in global movements against hegemony.

Historian and political scientist Dr. Gerald Horne discusses the vital role that Castro, Cuba and the revolution have played and might continue to play in global struggles against colonialism/imperialism.

Horne, the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and prolific author of more than 30 books and 100 scholarly papers on struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism, regularly decodes complex social, political and economic issues on Leid Stories. 

So here we are, the day after Thanksgiving, with a different kind of feast. Bring your own dish, even delicious leftovers, that everyone can share. But please, no turkey.

Take your seat at the table. Enjoy generous helping of information, opinions and ideas, and the company of really nice people.

The event, sponsored by Leid Stories’ “Free Your Mind Friday,” is free, but you must make reservations at 888-874-4888.

At a Congressional Black Caucus-sponsored town hall meeting on Sept. 22, 2005, Harry Belafonte, human rights activist and a member of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle, excoriated the political establishment, and especially the Democratic Party, for creating a political, social, economic and moral crisis in America and in many parts of the world. The people, he said, must play a central role in setting things right through political action. Blacks supporting the party, he said, was like “integrating into a burning house.”

This speech is particularly noteworthy, as Belafonte was flanked by two high-profile Democrats who were U.S. senators at the time and had their eyes set on the White House—Barack Obama was on Belafonte’s right; Hillary Clinton on his left.

Leid Stories’ listeners deconstruct Belafonte’s speech and its relevance to our current situation.